He's still just a soccer fan that's getting all excited about an odd situation happening to his country's players. If a president wants to give a heated, non-diplomatic answer over something like this I wouldn't hold it against him. But if he gave a heated, non-diplomatic answer over an issue that actually required real diplomacy, like say a trade agreement, that would piss me right the fuck off.

This is irrelevant. The leader of a country has to put all emotion aside and be completely rational. To describe banning a player that actually assaulted someone as 'fascist' is, in my opinion, absurd. This is a political term and it shows no understanding of it at all; this itself would concern me. Particularly when you take into account the fact that Suarez abused Patrice Evra racially not too long ago.

You can be a fan of Uruguay, but not a fan of other players biting each other on the pitch, evading punishment and creating a very murky, contentious atmosphere for Italy's defeat. Before the game I happened to be a fan of Uruguay, and Suarez, and as much as I still like them, punishing him is not the act of a fascist. Anyone who says that is fucking stupid, and hasn't understood the facts.

The Defoe incident occurred after the FA had ruled on the Ben Thatcher incident, where they decided that if an "extraordinary incident" worthy of more than a three game ban has taken place that a player CAN be banned even if the referee sees the incident, hence why Thatcher got a ban (7 games I think) despite being issued a yellow card.

So since Suarez's bite was deemed an "extraordinary incident" (since they wanted to ban him for more than three matches), it didn't matter that the referee didn't see it as he could have been issued with a 10 game ban anyway. The hypocritical nature of the FA comes in that they didn't deem Defoe's bite as an "extraordinary incident" worthy of more than a three game ban (remember that, officially at least, the FA were treating Suarez's bite as a first offence). And all of this is academic as Suarez's received more criticism for his first bite in the English media than Defoe ever did despite the fact Suarez wasn't even playing in the country at the time!

Although to be honest, the hypocritical nature of the English media/footballing establishment towards Englishmen doing things wrong in football can be summed up by the fact that the BBC wheeled out Alan Shearer to deliver a lecture on the morals of football after this latest incident; a man who once kicked a fellow player in the face in a completely unprovoked off the ball incident, then escaped punishment by threatening to boycott the English national team should he be banned.

Of course Suarez and large sections of Uruguayan society have embarrassed themselves over this incident, but frankly so have the English media with their hypocritical and over-the-top reaction to the incident. As have FIFA for their reactionary and short-sighted action against Suarez as well.

Even if that's the case, there's certainly an interesting difference in how to treat a bite: yellow, not a red, or an 8 game ban. I'm assuming the referee is FIFA "certified".

I'm pretty sure the referee could have awareded a red and then "filed" for a ban if that's the rule. And I'm ready to concede the referee might have not been too aware of the rule because this is absolutely not the normal thing to happen.

Edit: anyway, it's difficult to believe that the referee didn't actually saw Defoe... he was approaching the two of them and went to put them apart at that moment. And, AFAIK, that's the only time Defoe did that on the field.

I understand you have that in your mind. I just find it difficult to grasp given the video and the pictures showing the three of them that close. Not impossible, but very unlikely to me. Anyway, thanks for the change of rule link.

The referee didn't realise Defoe had bitten and booked him for a general over reaction. Because he had dealt with the issue at the time the authorities were not allowed to apply any extra punishment. The rule has now changed to allow retrospective punishments even when the referee has taken some action if the referee hasn't seen the "whole incident". So if that happened today Defoe would get a bad.

Suarez would have got a ban no matter what because the referee took no action during the game.

The same season Defoe bit Mascherano, the FA set precedent that they could enact a ban even if a player was given a yellow, when they gave Ben Thatcher an 8 game ban for almost destroying Pedro Mendes' face. So yes, if it was actually thought to be serious, Defoe could have been given a serious punishment, but he wasn't.

Oliver Kahn also only got one match for biting and then jump kicking someone in 2007.

I spent a minute there thinking yorugua was a collective term for Uruguayans. I think it should be from now on, it fits nicely.

EDIT: Ah, I see the mistake I made, I thought you were linking to someone else called yorugua and that is what the brackets were for. Now I see you were linking yourself and that I read it right initially. My bad.

it is... At the "rio de la plata", it's normal "slang" to talk "backwards", or "al verre/berre" (al reves). Some words fit better than others and therefore are "standarized" in its "backwards" form and usually more used than others. Some examples: Gatito (small cat) = titoga, Hambre (hunger) = brehan. Then, Uruguayo = yorugua.

What people seem to not understand over all this incident is that uruguayans are not denying what happened or the fact that it was completely wrong. Uruguayans are showing their support for Suárez as they believe the punishment was disproportionate and made worse due to factors other than the bite. Most of the quotes and headlines are out of context and show the tip of the iceberg.
None of the people I know justify, deny or are happy with what Suárez did. As i said, the support and unrest is regarding the exaggerated punishment. We all knew he would miss the rest of the WC and that was fine for us.

Believe me, being uruguayan I've read everything there is to be read, watched and listened. I've done it from original sources and in spanish. No thing taken out of context or modified.
Let's take Lugano's statements which seems to be the main source from which people here are making their conclusions. Those declarations of him are straight after the match. How could he know that Suarez did in fact bit Chiellini? He didn't have at the moment the same privilege we all had from TV coverage and reply. He obviously was as surprised as everyone else about the incident, how could Suárez had done it again? Is he that stupid? If you are on the team it ia obvious you want to think it didn't happen. He couldn't be sure about the match and got pissed at the journalists for insisting in the incident which he had no proof of at that certain moment. He tried of diverting the focus of the press conference to the fact that Uruguay won the match, but only because the focus of the questions were on something he couldn't be certain.
After that press conference in which everyone could see what happen he acknowledged it as did the coach in the conference after the punishment. All following statements by them were quesioning the severity of the punishment and the criteria used. The coach himself said that a punishment was out of the question. They are not happy though with the overreaction and procedure taken for the punishment.

Why? This is the third fucking time he bit someone in a match. Clearly he hasn't learned anything from his previous suspensions. IMO this suspension is too short, enough is enough, he should be banned for life. We keep giving him chances and he keeps doing the same old shit, nothing will change.

People stick up for their teammates all the time. This is nothing new or shocking. In his position would you seriously chew out your friend and best player in front of the media when he's facing a certain ban?

Believe it or not, some football players care more about protecting their teammates from the media than being labeled "classy" (which I think is annoying word on reddit but I won't get into that) by a few users on the internet.

Hannibal Lecter: ... Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the FBI.

Clarice Starling: You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you - why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.

I feel that the four month ban from ALL professional football including practicing and attending a football stadium is way too harsh, why don't just increase the international ban up to 15 matches instead?

Can you seriously stop typing "Uruguayans" or "Uruguay" everytime a fucking idiot comes out saying shit about Suarez? Stop generalizing, not everyone in this country is an idiot, holy fucking shit. Every thread about Suarez is filled with negative comments about us Uruguayans as if we're all retarded just because some people find it easier to blame FIFA than Suarez. It's pretty fucking funny how a subreddit filled with Americans and Europeans try to pretend they know more about how people feel in our country that the few of us who actually live here. According to your flawless logic, because 3-4 people tried to pretend nothing happened or blame the wrong person/organization, that means all 3 million of us are like that.

This subreddit has been pretty disgusting towards us lately.

edit: and how the fuck is that comment the most upvoted? Tabarez clearly said in a press conference Suarez deserved to be punished, he admitted it was obvious what Suarez did was wrong since the images were very clear. How the fuck is that embarassing? Fucking hell, anyone saying random bullshit about us these days gets upvoted.

Specially in south america. More amazingly in Venezuela, where the current president and party have been for over 15 years in power and call the opposition Fascist. But that's a theme that has no place in /r/soccer

Uruguayans see biting as a part of the game. There's a fundamental discrepancy between perceptions of the incident.

EDIT: I didn't mean all Uruguayans in totality, but clearly Lugano,Tabarez, Mujica, and Suarez etc. don't see a problem with it. Or at least it being significant enough to warrant such a ban. To them Suarez is just being crucified for playing the game.

No one sees it as part of the game. It is plain wrong. Still the punishment was disproportionate. Miss the world cup? Perfect. Miss some other matches? Fine. Being kicked out of the concentration, treated as a criminal and banned from training for 4 months? Outrageous and disproportionate. There's other factors behind that which uruguayans care to talk about and seek for justice. The rest of the world is just happy with hating and bashing based on generalisations and quotes taken out of context.

In rugby a far more naturally violent game people have been banned for more than 18 months for biting. And the closest analogy to the Suarez incident was Dylan Hartley who was caught eye gouging for a third time and banned nearly 6 months.

It was Suarez' 3rd offence, IMO he should've been banned at least a year.

You could certainly argue that. But i'd go the other way and say others were far too light. These are adults we're talking about. Most adults can behave and not bite/headbutt/assault each other when going about their duties.

I don't get this at all. Best case scenario for Uruguay - Suarez gets a 1 game ban. This still means that he wouldn't have been able to play in the game that they lost. I'm shocked that Suarez has been able to skirt any responsibility in his homeland.

All of this is way out of proportion! I'm sure FIFA are guilty of much worse things than this. What about the debacle around Qatar 2022? Is there really nothing more worthy of the outrage of the president of Uruguay?